BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Allegations of understaffed units at Erie County Medical Center have gone viral on the social media platform TikTok.
The video was posted earlier this week by the union representing nurses at ECMC and some viewers have reached out asking us to look into it.
It has over 20,000 views and claims there is a severe staffing shortage in the medical center's Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program.
Lona DeNisco is one of the nurses in the video. She tells 7 News at one point she was in charge of 50 people by herself and it is an ongoing issue.
According to DeNisco, there is patient-on-patient violence, nurses are being injured and there is not appropriate coverage of public safety attendants to help de-escalate things.
ECMC released the following statement to 7 News:
"Due to our inability to discharge patients to state-supported programs, coupled with inadequate Medicaid reimbursements, ECMC continues to experience high patient volume challenges in our Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program (CPEP). As we work through these community dynamics, we are working with our NYSNA representatives to resolve these challenges, which include filling 12 current open nursing positions. We have 7 new CPEP nurses starting in the unit, with more nurses soon coming on board; we will temporarily hire travel agency nurses to fill those other vacancies until the remaining nurses complete their orientation and start working in CPEP. To date, we have been having ongoing conversations with our NYSNA representatives; it is unfortunate that some misinformation has been disseminated on this subject."
DeNisco claimed some of the information ECMC provided in its statement was not accurate.
This is an issue we'll continue to follow.
